


A Pleasure To Work With

by verybadhedgehog



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol, Gen, Sienar-Jaemus Fleet Systems, Slice of Life, TIE Silencer, it's a bit like formula one testing really, prototype starfighter testing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 04:43:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13333749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verybadhedgehog/pseuds/verybadhedgehog
Summary: Kylo Ren's terrifying reputation precedes him. However, to the team of Sienar-Jaemus Fleet Systems test engineers and technicians, he is first and foremost the ace starfighter pilot trusted with development of their new prototype, the TIE Silencer. They respect him and he respects them, and they all get along just fine.





	A Pleasure To Work With

**Author's Note:**

> Not to be taken too seriously.  
> Spot the in-jokes about a real life racing driver (i think there are two? three?) and win… nothing.  
> Set pre-TFA, as I decided to imagine the Silencer isn't in active service yet.

**_Supremacy_ , Officers’ Wardroom Two, 2235h Friday**

 

“Who are those guys?”

Chief Petty Officer Talget Rees put down her glass of Navy Long. “Which guys?”

“Those. On that table over there. With the unfastened jackets.”

“Oh, them. Yeah, you see the patches under their First Order insignia?”

“Hold on…” Petty Officer Dantrey squinted. “Oh yeah. Is that Sienar-Jaemus Fleet Systems? Light’s not the best in here.”

“Yeah. That’s the development team for the TIE Silencer.”

“No way? The Silencer? Wow. So they work with Kylo Ren?”

Rees grinned. “Yep.”

“Wow. They look rather relaxed, considering. I mean, they must get force-strangled on a fairly regular basis.”

“Yeah, no, funny thing is: apparently not. Apparently he’s totally fine with them.”

“Really?”

“Couple of days ago, I was talking to Engineer Suchran — that’s the tall guy there? Brown skin, sort of long face?”

Dantrey nodded.

“And I think her name was Endis — the woman with short hair, leaning over the table?”

“Yeah, I see her.”

“So anyway, they’d had a few drinks and they were chatting about him like it was no big deal.”

“Looks like they’ve had a few drinks now,” Dantrey said, looking at the tech’s table and its detritus of salt snack packets and empty glasses and beer bottles. “Oh, go on, Talgs, introduce us. I want to hear Kylo Ren stories — and get details on the Silencer.”

Rees thought about it, then looked over to the table of Sienar-Jaemus techs. She made more deliberate eye contact with someone on the table, nodded, smiled, and stood up. “Come on, let’s go and sit with them.” She led and Dantrey followed along. One of the technicians greeted Rees, and they all made more space at their table for the two Navy officers to settle in.

“How you all doing?” Rees asked.

“Great, yeah.”

“Good session today?”

The technicians glanced between each other, and Rees realised she hadn’t introduced the newcomer. “This is Petty Officer Marco Dantrey, by the way. He’s into starfighters.”

“Well, I mean, who isn’t,” Dantrey said.

The team introduced themselves. Suchran. Endis. Judson. Meredith. 

“Anyway, yeah, good,” Endis said. “Got a few key things sorted out since last test session.”

Suchran took the lead. “We made great progress, so I gave the team an order, no working late tonight. We’ve all earned some beers and snacks.”

“I bet you earn them, working with him.”

Endis laughed. “He’s really not that bad. Did your friend not tell you?” she said, and Dantrey tried not to make the wrong face. “No, it’s alright.” She took another swig of her beer. “You see him totally differently than what we do.”

Dantrey tried again to avoid making the wrong face at the Sienar-Jaenus woman’s rather loose syntax. He supposed that the First Order valued these people for their expertise, and therefore turned a blind eye to their unrefined speech.

“To you, he’s whatever, the Enforcer, all of that,” Judson said, making a dramatic gesture with one hand to illustrate. “To us, he’s a fighter pilot. And not just any fighter pilot, the best.”

“And he gives great technical feedback,” Endis added. “Pleasure to work with, to be quite honest.”

Another technician, Meredith, cut in. “Like, case in point, today we were — oh no, wait a second —“

“If it’s classified you don’t have to,” Dantrey said. “I wouldn’t want you guys getting in trouble on our account.”

“No, no, you’re alright. If I leave out the fine details, we’ll all be right.”

Suchran gave affirmation. Rees and Dantrey leaned forward.

“So, yeah. We were working on the thrust response, implementing some solutions we’d been working out"—

“Solutions _I’d_ been working out.”

—“Yeah, solutions Endis and her guys in Production had been working out — and it was a good session, really. Kylo was happy, he gave us good feedback, some pointers towards further improvements.”

“And a happy KR means a happy team — so, beers all round,” Suchran said. 

“Speaking of which, shall I get a round in?”

There was general agreement, and Judson stood, awkwardly gathered the empty glasses and bottles, and headed for the bar.

 

* * *

 

**_Supremacy_ , Hangar 16, 1400h Monday**

 

Test Technician Meredith fired up the propulsion system. Chief Test Engineer Suchran and Test Engineer Endis checked system readouts together.

Suchran asked for an update on initial heat exchange position, and Test Technician Judson delivered.

On time, test pilot Kylo Ren entered the hangar, black cloth flapping behind him. He looked around. “Just us in here?”

“Yep, just our team.”

Kylo unclasped his mask and pulled it off. 

“Put it under here if you want,” said Endis, pointing under the consoles. She and Judson made room, and Kylo stowed his helmet.

“So,” he said. “Fired up and ready?”

“All ready. Just a quick look at the schedule,” he said, and offered a datapad for Kylo’s viewing. “We’d like you to run to the first four sets of beacons and back for three laps to get some thruster data, and then we’re going to try with weapons firing on the barrage targets.”

“Okay,” Kylo said. “I’ll stay out unless you need me to come back in.”

“That’s fine — just wait for my word before you start firing on the targets.”

“You think you’ve pinned down the issue with power draw down?”

“Yep. Just need the data and your feedback to be sure.”

Kylo strolled out to the Silencer, climbed on board and lowered the access hatch.

“Ready to depart.”

“Okay, Kylo, keep it on mode zero till you’re clear of the line.”

“I know.”

“And engine mode two after the line,”

“Copy.”

The Silencer lifted from the hangar floor and slipped out of the atmosphere containment field into the space immediately surrounding the Supremacy, at a modest pace with its thrust arrays only dimly glowing. A set of beeps on the test comm channel indicated that the TIE had passed the boundary delineating the test space, into which other craft were forbidden from passing during the test session (a source of consternation to some of the officers of the Supremacy, who needed to adjust docking routes for supply vessels and transporter craft).

“Engine mode two for the first lap, Kylo,” said Endis.

The rear of the TIE Silencer lit up in red and accelerated to a startling pace, rushing past a set of hover beacons.

Suchran, Endis and Meredith stood around a console, peering at the curves of a graph that drew itself with the TIE’s continuing flight.

“That’s looking better,” Endis said. “Let’s see how tight he takes the second beacons.”

“Definitely better under cornering. Still a gap there though.”

Suchran pressed a button on his comm device. “How’s it feeling in there?”

“Better than before. Could still be better coming out of a tight manoeuvre.”

“Okay, Kylo, copy that.”

“It’s maybe a tenth or less, but I need to have it immediately.”

“Yeah, copy that. Telemetry shows the same. Mode three for your second lap, Kylo. And you can throw it around this time.”

“Can do.”

On the third lap, Kylo called through on the comm channel. “Steering feels slightly loose in places.”

“Okay, Kylo, copy.”

Endis looked at the telemetry screen. “Worse response after acceleration/deceleration,” she said. “And where the throttle is already micro-lagging. Looks like part of the same problem.”

“Gets worse when he’s chucking it about. So could be mechanical,” Suchran said.

“Something physically loose in there?”

“Could be. Let’s bring him in.” He pushed the talk to cockpit button. “Kylo? If you could come back to hangar now, back to hangar.”

Kylo turned the ship around, reduced power, and coasted in to the hangar. He lowered the landing gear and the ship settled.

“Systems to minimum, please, Kylo.”

“Yeah, okay.” He climbed out of the hatch and leapt down to the ground. “What’s the story?”

“We want to check connections to the thruster array. Something might be mechanically loose in there. Could take a while.”

“Physically cutting connection to the thrusters?” Kylo looked thoughtful and nodded. “That’s possible.” He walked with Suchran to the rear of the fighter. 

“How was it feeling in there?”

“A loose, uncertain feeling in the steering, mostly in the z axis and a little in the x,” Kylo said, holding his hand flat out in front of him and wiggling it to demonstrate.

“After a corner, was that?”

“Yes. In the second part of a complex, especially.”

Two astromech BB units rolled up, and began undoing maintenance hatches on the belly of the fighter.

“Do you need me to… visualise?” Kylo asked, looking intently at the thrust arrays.

“We’ll take a look first, with the droids.”

“Alright. Let me know,” Kylo said, and he turned and walked to a corner of the hangar, where he sat down with his back against a wall.

Technician Judson tipped his head in Kylo’s direction. “What’s he doing? Nap time already? Or meditating?”

“I’d say eighty percent chance meditation. But you can’t discount nap.”

The BB units busied themselves under the fighter, and Suchran went to give them further direction.

A call came in from the bridge, interrupting him. He waved a hand at Endis to tell her to take over in his stead.

“Engineer Suchran? This is Captain Peavey.”

“Good day, sir.”

“Yes, quite. Ah — is this test session finished?”

“No, sir.”

“I see. It’s merely that we don’t see the Silencer in flight, and we would prefer to have anterior sector four space open…”

Suchran could hear another man’s voice fussing in the background.

“Give me the bloody comm — Engineer Suchran? General Hux.”

Suchran rolled his eyes. This was all they needed.

“Are you and Ren going to be flying that TIE or not?”

“The TIE is undergoing some modifications at the moment, sir, and Kylo Ren is ready to get back on board.”

“What’s he doing now, if I might ask.”

“Meditating, I believe, sir.”

Hux scoffed audibly. “Well, I’m sure you’re all terribly patient and understanding with his mystical ways, although of course the rest of the starfighter corps seem not to need to indulge in his brand of relaxation.”

Suchran rolled his eyes again.

“How long do you intend to have that sector of space tied up?”

“Until 1700h, sir. As scheduled.”

Hux sighed. “Fine. What modifications are you doing, if I might ask?”

“Correcting a mechanical issue with cable routing, sir.”

“A mechanical issue? At this stage?”

“Issues can arise at various stages of the process, with a prototype, sir,” Suchran said, gritting his teeth.

He could hear Hux muttering to Peavey, off mic. “What are we paying these sums of money _for_ if they’re still having mechanical problems — this is corner cutting at the front end stage, I could have half this done in-house.”

Suchran made a rude gesture at the comm device, grateful that it wasn’t a holotransmission.

 “Alright. Well, I’m _sure_ you know what you’re doing,” Hux said, a little sarcastically, and cut off the transmission.

Judson looked up from his work. “Was that the bridge?”

“That was _Hux_.”

“He does like to, erm, take an interest, doesn’t he?”

“He does. If you can call it that.”

Endis and the BB units emerged from beneath the fighter.

“We found the culprit, I believe. One cable bundle on the starboard side was tugging under its own weight. Two cable ties and some welding, and we should be good as gold.”

“Do we have images?”

“I had BB-9L take before and after images.”

“Good. Something to show to production.”

The BB unit trundled to a console, to upload its images.

It was time to start the flight test again, and Suchran knew the team had little time to waste.

“Meredith! You go and get the sleeping prince, cos we’re ready to go, I reckon.”

Meredith sighed. “Oh alright. I’ll stand out of lightsaber’s range,” he laughed.

Kylo opened his eyes at Meredith’s approach, stood, stretched, and walked back with him.

“Issues fixed, Engineer?”

“We believe so,” Suchran said. “Time for a test and if all’s well we’ll go straight into the weapons power draw-down test.”

“Good.”

“One warm up lap and one full power lap and then we’ll start with the heavy lasers.”

Kylo climbed back on board and quickly had the TIE fired up and heading back out of the hangar.

Endis and Judson stood at their monitoring screens.

“How’s the thrust response, Endis?”

“We’ve lost the micro-lag, and laterals are looking good.”

Suchran pushed the talk to cockpit button to check in with Kylo. “How’s it feeling?”

“Better.”

“Under lateral acceleration?”

“Better.”

Suchran turned to his left. “Ready, Judson?”

Judson tapped on his screen. “Power cell readouts running.”

“Okay, good.” Suchran pushed the button again. “Alright, Kylo, we’re ready for the weapons power draw-down test.”

“I’ll come round from ship side.”

“Confirm that. Target one has shields fully up, ready to go.”

Kylo swung the TIE around and set off into the test space again.

“Okay, fire when ready on this lap.”

“Confirm.”

Long bolts of green laser plasma fired from the TIE’s cannons and dispersed on the shields of the target satellite.

“Heavy fire from both sides,” Suchran said.

“Yes, yes, yes, I’m doing it. You don’t have to remind me.” He pummelled the barrage target with several more rounds of fire. “Fuck’s sake.”

Suchran cut the comm.

“Power cells discharging — smooth curve as predicted. Down to fifty five percent now,” Judson said, “and cells starting to recharge now.”

“Need to check if that’s from reactor or solars. Holding steady?”

“Steady at sixty percent approx, and he’s giving it plenty.”

“How’s the reactor to ion drive throughput?”

“Steady.”

“Good. He’s gonna have a hole in the shields in a minute. I’ll call him off.”

“Kylo? That’s enough on the lasers.”

His fire ceased.

“You’ve got what we need?” he asked.

“Looking good from here, Kylo. Nothing to note on thrust or handling?”

“No. All responses normal.”

Suchran called the TIE back in.

 

* * *

 

**_Supremacy_ , Hangar 16, 1010h Tuesday**

 

“Same runs as yesterday, but after the second lap, stealth field on. Four laps full stealth, then pop it back off and we’ll reestablish comms.”

“Two laps, then four laps full stealth, got it. Thrusters on mode two?”

“Mode two, but you can try mode three or five on one of your stealth laps. We’ll download data at the end but as far as handling goes I’m more interested in your report.”

Kylo raised the landing gear, and the Silencer departed the hangar to start its run-in laps.

Endis and Judson monitored their screens.

A comm from the bridge came through. Suchran hoped it wasn’t General Hux again. He hoped in vain.

“Are you lot flying that Silencer out there in stealth mode?”

“Yes, sir. We are conducting a test of the cloaking field.”

“I take it you have full permission for that.”

“Of course, sir. We have full authorisation. You signed off on the request —“

“Yes, of course I did. I simply find that…” Hux lowered his voice. “Listen, do you trust him?”

“He’s a fighter pilot, your — our — best, sir. A fighter pilot engaged in necessary testing.”

“Well. So long as he doesn’t simply wander off, we’ll all be fine.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see. Good. That’ll be all.”

Hux abruptly cut the comm and Suchran shook his head.

Endis glanced across at him. “Was that Hux again?”

“Yep.”

“What did he want? Or should I not ask?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” Suchran said.

They looked at each other and shook their heads. Endis silently mouthed a rude word.

“He is, though,” Suchran said. “Don’t talk like that in front of your new Navy pals, mind you, or they’ll be sending themselves off to reconditioning.” 

Meredith was standing close to the hangar exit, staring out into the void.

“I have a visual on the Silencer,” he called.

“You sure? By your eyes?”

“Yeah, just got a glimpse of him rounding one of the beacons. Absolutely nothing on sensors though.”

“Well, that’s good.”

After a few minutes, the Silencer suddenly reappeared on Suchran’s test space monitor, and telemetry graphs began to redraw themselves in front of Endis and Judson. The fighter approached the Supremacy for a good fifteen seconds before Kylo opened comms.

“Coming back in now.”

“Okay, give us your debrief when you’re docked.”

 

* * *

 

Kylo stood and described how the Silencer had behaved on his test run, hands moving animatedly as he laid out the movements and attitudes of the starfighter in flight. 

“That’s meshing with what we expected,” Suchran said. “Give us a write up so we have that to take to Production along with the data download.”

“Of course,” Kylo said. Then he fixed Suchran with a questioning look. “Tell me, did you have any interruptions this time?”

“Yes. Just one.”

“Was it General Hux?”

“It was.”

Kylo grimaced. “He shouldn’t interfere. What did he want?”

“He wanted to know if we were flying in stealth mode.”

“He knows that. And he should go through the proper channels.”

“Technically,” Suchran said, “as I am leading the test team, I _am_ the proper channels.”

“No,” Kylo said. “Fuck that. He’s doing this to get at me, but he can’t call directly to the TIE, yet, so he calls you. It’s pathetic really.”

“We answer questions as and when appropriate. We can’t exactly tell him to go away.”

“You could refer him to me.”

“If you like.”

“Tell him, the next time he tries to interfere, that I’ve given you direct orders to refer all questions to me. You’re under my command as much as his.”

“Yes. Sir.”

“Kriffing _fuck_. He shouldn’t even _be_ here. He should be supervising progress on his own project.” Kylo looked up in the vague direction of the _Supremacy’s_ bridge, and glowered. “Has he brought his hangers-on? “

“I did speak to Captain Peavey earlier on.”

“Peavey, huh. So who’s commanding the _Finalizer_? Ship’s cat?”

“No idea.”

“Pathetic, isn’t it?”

The technicians made vague non-committal sounds of amusement.

“I’ll turn up on his project, see how he likes it,” Kylo muttered. “In fact, when we’re done here, I’ll go and speak to him.”

 “If I could have your report first though. Sir.”

Kylo ran a hand through his hair and made a face. “Yeah. Of course.” He reached for his datapad.

 

* * *

 

 

**_Supremacy_ , Bridge, 1315h Tuesday**

 

“Ah, Ren. Good to see you.”

Under his mask, Kylo rolled his eyes at Hux’s insincerity. “You seem keen to follow me around, General.”

“Not at all.”

“So, what then brings you to the _Supremacy_?”

“I divide my time between the _Finalizer_ , work on Starkiller, and the _Supremacy_ , as you know.”

“And how much time _would_ you spend on this ship if you were able to stay away from my fighter testing?”

“That’s none of your business, Ren.”

“No, Hux. It’s none of _your_ business.”

“The equipment of First Order military is none of my business? _My forces_?”

“The First Order’s forces. You are not the Order.”

Hux stared at him, his face sour and pinched. “It is every bit my business.”

“You have hundreds of other lines of command to attend to before you come to a test program operated by external contractor personnel. Does your chief provisioning officer know you’ve gone over her head? Does Sienar-Jaemus’ liaison manager know you’ve gone over his head? Ignoring your other responsibilities to do so?”

“Don’t question how I lead and how I manage,” Hux said, suddenly blistering.

Ren barked a dry, distorted laugh. “All because you can’t leave me alone to pilot a starfighter for half an hour.”

“I’m taking an _interest_ , Ren. I want to know how testing is going. I’d like to get progress reports.”

“You’ll get reports. Ask your chief provisioning officer.” He leant closer. “Yes, I _do_ know what your organisation chart looks like.”

“Well done you,” sniffed Hux.

“So, don’t hassle my team again. I’ve given them orders to refer all your questions to me.”

“Oh, splendid. If I _know_ they’ll refer to you, I shall make it my business to speak to them _much_ more frequently. Thank you very much indeed, Ren.”

Hux turned and departed. Kylo clenched a fist and gritted his teeth. Hux would come to regret this.


End file.
